Handlers prep Palin for first TV interview

Two weeks ago, People magazine was granted an exclusive interview with Sen. John McCain's new running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, of Alaska, who spoke about motherhood, her career and the historic nature of her candidacy.

She has not given an interview since, eschewing the traditional route for a vice-presidential nominee to take to the TV-news interview circuit immediately. Palin will break that blackout today, when she will begin two days of interviews with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson.

She flew back to Alaska on Wednesday, bringing with her a squad of McCain's top policy advisers to help her prepare.

McCain's team hired several veterans from President Bush's campaigns, making them part of a team dedicated to defending Palin from unsubstantiated rumors on the Internet, Democratic claims and potentially damaging news reports about her record.

The McCain campaign is battling news reports that have the potential to undermine the image it has presented of Palin as a reformer who, for instance, shares McCain's unfriendly views toward federally funded pet spending projects known as earmarks.

On Wednesday, a report on Politico.com detailed Palin's requests for federal appropriations as governor, including money for studies on the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals, the sorts of projects McCain has lampooned in his own attacks on earmarks.

McCain's campaign sent another team to Alaska to respond more rapidly to such reports. It is headed by Taylor Griffin, who had worked for Bush's 2004 campaign. Another former Bush campaign aide, Tracey Schmitt, is Palin's traveling press secretary. Tucker Eskew, a veteran of Bush's primary campaign against McCain, has been a constant by Palin's side this week.

Among the key people on the Palin plane to Alaska on Wednesday night were Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's economic adviser; Steve Biegun, a former employee of Bush's National Security Council who has taken leave from his day job at Ford Motors to advise Palin; Randy Scheunemann, McCain's senior foreign-policy adviser; and Joe Donoghue, a longtime Senate aide to McCain.

Also on the plane was Nicolle Wallace, a communications director for Bush's 2004 campaign and his White House. Wallace's husband, Mark Wallace, Bush's deputy campaign manager in 2004, is helping prepare Palin for the debate.

For now, prepping for the debate and the Gibson sessions are one and the same, and aides developed a set of presumed questions and answers that they are walking Palin through.